


The comfort of time

by SwiftRiver



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Cecil's comfort hatchet, Fluff, M/M, Memory Loss, Mirrors, Re-Education
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 21:44:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15495315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwiftRiver/pseuds/SwiftRiver
Summary: Every day, Cecil wakes up next to the most beautiful man he's ever seen. Every day, he falls in love.





	The comfort of time

He wakes-

\-----

He wakes up to the most beautiful man sitting beside him. The man is looking down at him, concern causing little wrinkles next to his perfect eyes, and he feels a sudden urge to somehow smooth them away.  
  
"Cecil," he says with a voice like caramel and hazelwood, "Cecil, how are you feeling?" And just like that, Cecil falls in love instantly.  
  
After a bout of introductions - "My name is Carlos," the perfect man tells him, and Cecil can’t help but whisper the name reverently to himself - they move out into the kitchen, where Carlos (" _Carlos_ ," even his name was perfect) cooks eggs for him.

During breakfast, Carlos mutters something about the sun screeching up three hours early today, and Cecil tries to map out every single detail in this man's face, his habits, the way he talks. How his mouth quirks when he's listing off how many ducks have turned into cell phones and cell phones into geese. How his hands card through his majestic hair and Cecil -  
  
\----  
  
He wakes up to the most beautiful man sitting beside him. The man is looking down at him, concern causing little wrinkles between his perfect eyebrows, and he feels a sudden urge to brush them away.  
  
"Cecil," he says with a voice like chocolate and oak, "Cecil, how are you feeling?" And just like that, Cecil falls in love instantly.  
  
The man tells him his name is Carlos (" _Carlos_ ", the word rolls off Cecil's tongue like honey and Cecil wants to say it all the time) and when they move into the kitchen, he starts to make eggs for breakfast. As he spears the cooked eggs with his fork, Carlos comments on how the sun is early in the sky, so perhaps this counts as brunch?  
  
"Time is always kind of weird in Night Vale, and I really should start taking notes on the sun," Carlos comments while taking another bite of the scrambled eggs. "Maybe it would help finally figure out why everything is so _strange_ here. Ooh, could the town be moving around? That would explain all the earthquakes and-"  
  
Cecil rapidly loses track of what this perfect man is saying with his perfect mouth as he gets distracted by how the (apparently late) sunlight glints off his eyes, and how his hair is mussed just the _right_ amount by sleep. He might have been staring at his perfect jawline because Carlos suddenly falls quiet and gives a little self-conscious cough and oh, every sound that his throat makes is exquisite.  
  
"Carlos," he says, and the other man visibly perks up at this.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Never stop talking. Please."  
  
Carlos opens his mouth, closes it, then, as if he cant stop himself from commenting, starts rambling about how it is statistically impossible for somebody to never stop something, you know, with Science and all. Cecil sighs happily and -  
  
\---

He wakes up to the most beautiful man sitting beside him. The man is looking down at him, concern causing little wrinkles on his perfect forehead, and he succumbs to a sudden urge to reach up, brushing them away with his thumb.

The man’s eyes flutter closed for a brief moment, then he reaches up to hold his hand. It tingles where their skin touches.

“Cecil,” the perfect man smiles down at him, “Good morning.” And just like that, Cecil falls in love instantly.

The man leads him out of the bed and into the kitchen, still holding his hand. Not that Cecil is complaining. He loves how their hands fit together, as if they were meant to be. Cecil is still staring at their fingers that are closed around his when he hears a soft cough. He looks up, meeting the man’s eyes and trying not to fall into those deep recesses of stunning brown.

“Um. I might need both hands to cook.”

It takes a second for the words to properly register in Cecil’s head, but when it does, he jumps back, hastily letting go of the beautiful man’s hand. Was he being too clingy? He was being too clingy, wasn’t he? Stupid, stupid Cecil, getting excited and flustered when he didn’t even know if the other guy felt the same way -

“Hey-hey, Cecil!”

Cecil’s eyes snap back to the man’s face. The man reaches out and squeezes Cecil’s hand gently before moving slightly away. He smiles at Cecil.

“It’ll only take a few minutes, okay? Do you want to go wait for me at the table?”

Cecil nods at him, grateful, and goes to take a seat. He didn’t even notice that his legs were aching, until now. He angles the chair so he can still see the back of the man, who is opening cabinets and pulling out a skillet. It’s a nice back.

The man comes back to him after a few moments and sets down just one plate of eggs in front of Cecil, a fork, and a cup filled with what looks like orange juice. At Cecil’s curious look, the man smiles again, showing off some perfectly straight teeth that made Cecil’s heart pound a bit harder, and said, “I already ate. I woke up a lot earlier today, so…”

Cecil takes the fork, and scoops up some eggs into his mouth.

“This is,” he pauses and clears his throat to make himself sound better, more appealing, “this is really good. Thank you…?”

The man looks pained for a moment, then says, “It’s Carlos.”

“Carlos,” Cecil murmurs back. The name feels like a cold drink after a blazing hot summer’s day. “Thank you, Carlos.”

Shivers travel down Cecil’s spine as he repeats it over and over in his mind, determined to keep the information safe.

Carlos has a really nice voice, like finely aged wine for the ears. And he talks while Cecil forks the eggs ( _Carlos made these eggs for him!_ ) into his mouth, and it is quite possibly the nicest experience Cecil’s ever had. He doesn’t always follow what Carlos is saying, but it sounds very smart, and Cecil loves listening to him talk. Cecil hopes Carlos is having a good time talking to him, too. He glances at Cecil once in a while, as if to check if he’s still there, like he would ever dare to pay attention to anything else but his melodic voice?

There’s a crash from somewhere in the house, and Cecil jumps about ten feet into the air. He has to glance down to make sure he hadn’t swallowed his fork - he had not, but his hand is holding it so tightly it’s turning white.

Carlos stands up, chair scraping along the floor. “I’ll go check on that,” he says, his eyes flicking over to Cecil. Cecil swallows and nods. He wants to reach out, to hold Carlos’s hand again, but he doesn’t. He watches Carlos round the corner and disappear.

He misses Carlos already.

Cecil stares down at his plate, contemplating. Carlos never told him to stay here, but he never told him to leave, either. But...he needs to see Carlos, to make sure he’s safe, or that he’s not disappeared, or…

He shovels the rest of the eggs into his mouth and chews quickly but quietly as he stands up. He’s never really liked chewing noises. His leg muscles still ache, but he makes it over to where Carlos had disappeared steadily enough.

“....if you hadn’t…..too far…..”

Cecil pokes his head around the corner, then relaxes a bit when he sees Carlos, still here, still existing. He’s leaning out of the open windows, muttering something. And while that was an extremely adorable sight to behold, talking to oneself outside a window might have been a sign of an oncoming existential crisis and Cecil was _worried_.

“Carlos?” he calls out, and the man in question spins around to look at him, eyebrows yet again furrowed. A tragic occurrence. Cecil vows to obliterate whatever existential dread that might have been coming to plague -

Something moves outside the window and rustls the bush. Cecil’s eyes reflexively flicker towards it, spotting a black blob in midst of the leaves, someone wearing a cape and a balaclava.

_Secret Police_

The word slides through Cecil’s mind, catches on something, and _rips_ -

_Cecil feels like he’s going to d_ i _e. Which isn’t a new sensat_ ion, given his hometown’s reputation of at least three casualties each day. But he has never felt it so strongly as now, surrounded by...mirrors. He’s cowering on the floor. And he’s going to die. Probably soon.

Cecil can hear his blood pounding in his ears as he squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to think of what’s in front of him. And behind him. And reflecting - _reflections_ \- thousands and millions of copies of him. _Was it the hundredth reflection that’s supposed to crawl out and attack,_ he finds himself wondering, _or was it the thousandth?_ He’s not sure, he’s never sure of anything.

But then the accuracy of the urban legend hardly matters when he has a literal prophecy telling him that he will die a mirror-related death.

Cecil buries his head deeper into his arms and rolls into a tighter ball.

The room is deathly quiet except for a soft whimpering and Cecil realizes with a jolt that the sound is coming from him. He immediately clamps both hands over his mouth and focuses on breathing through his nose. One-one-two, in-in-out, he’s not taking any chances that the Thing inside the mirror can hear him and come looking.

He feels like a child again. Age six, shuddering in a corner as he waits for the scoutmaster to drive the danger back. Age ten, pulling his blanket over his head as his mother hisses warnings by his bedside. Age fifteen, The Internship.

Broken mirrors and uncertain memories hit him like a sledgehammer. His breath explodes out in a gasp as his fingers scrabble against his neck, feeling, making sure he’s still there. Still here.

Trying harder to squeeze his eyes only makes them twitch open. He catches a glimpse of himself before he can avert his eyes.

He sees himself, huddled into himself, frightened, staring back. Wide eyes look back at him, frozen in place.

And then it moves.

It - whatever it is - slowly unfurls, getting closer and closer to Cecil. And Cecil can’t move, can’t make a sound, hair on the back of his neck standing up as it slides closer, and closer, and closer until it reaches out, inch by inch passing through the glass like it was made of water. And Cecil still can’t move, can only stare and stare at the shadow coming towards him, dread pooling in his guts, pounding in his ears, thinking, oh, he’s going to die -

The glass shatters.

A white coat is thrown over him, and-

.

Cecil wakes up with his head placed on some kind of soft surface. He coughs. His feels as if someone’s droned government-issued messages into his ears for hours without any break and then shoved him into a room full of his primal fears.

Oh. _Oh._

He feels hands smooth back his hair and reaches up to hold it. He recognizes this hand. He recognizes the lap his cheek is currently lying on.

He feels safe enough to let his eyes flitter open.

He meets the eyes of the man he loves.

“Cecil,” he says, “how are you feeling?” His eyes are furrowed, worried. He wants to reach out and smooth the lines away but his hands are either squished under his body or otherwise preoccupied.

Cecil rubs the pad of his thumb along his hand. Carlos’s hand.

“Carlos,” he croaks out, and hears Carlos gasp. Geez, his voice sounds so bad. He clears his throat and tries again. “Carlos. I’m….okay?”

He isn’t so sure about his answer, so he lets it climb up the air like a question. Carlos knows this too, judging by how his eyebrows are now hovering by his hairline. His frankly amazing hairline, if Cecil says so himself.

“You said my name,” Carlos breathes, “you remember?”

Cecil pulls Carlos’s hand over to his face and kisses his palm, right where the creases are, where he has a slight chemical burn from all the Sciencing he does. He remembers loving this palm.

“I remember,” he murmurs into said palm. “You saved me.”

Carlos slumps a little and Cecil can see that they’re on the couch in the living room. Their couch. He recognizes it now. Then he’s immediately distracted by Carlos running his hand through his perfect hair, now frowning with his expressive eyebrows.

“I should have gone sooner - probably should have shielded you first, before breaking that mirror. I didn’t - the hatchet under our bed was quite good at breaking down doors and mirrors, by the way - I didn’t know what it would do, I just panicked! Cecil….you were so -” Carlos seems to struggle to find a word that would simultaneously describe the situation clearly and not be insulting to Cecil’s pride or self worth.

“Pathetic?” he suggests. He has a very large variety of words stocked in his brain. That’s what journalists do, they accumulate a wide variety of words.

Carlos glances down at him, then shakes his head.

“No, don’t call yourself that. You looked so scared, and you were staring at this one mirror, I had to do _something_.”

Cecil blinks. And then something Carlos said finally processes through his brain.

“Carlos!” he squeaks, but in a very manly and deep baritone voice. “You used the hatchet for _me_??”

Carlos looks startled at the sudden change of topic, then he laughs, a short burst that brightens up the whole room like a drop of lemon zest.

“Yes,” he says, “I figured the situation called for it.”

Cecil pushes himself up. His arms are still shaky, but this is a topic worth being upright for. Carlos helps, putting a hand on Cecil’s back as support.

“I bet you looked so good with it!” he gushes, imagining Carlos with his white lab coat, raising his hatchet, ready to assert dominance over the mirrors. “Oh, I need to get a picture, or a video? Do you think I could ask the Secret Police for their recordings?”

“Cecil, honey,” Carlos says, and he pulls Cecil closer to him. Cecil leans his head on his shoulders, sighing contently. “As much as I understand your enthusiasm, I really don’t want you to go near them right now. Maybe wait a little bit more? Just to make sure you’re...alright.”

Cecil hums and relaxes. He could do that. Any time spent with Carlos was a time worth spending not doing something else. Carlos lays his head on Cecil’s and rubs his arm. It is very relaxing.

They stay like that for a while.

“Hey,” Carlos says.

“Yeah?”

“I did bring the hatchet back home, you know.”

Cecil’s eyebrows shoot up as he lifts himself up to actually look at Carlos. Was he saying what he thought he was saying?

“Are you saying….?”

Carlos smiles impishly back at him. Cecil blushes. Carlos has the best smiles.

After an hour of watching Carlos posing by the bedside with the hatchet, Cecil flops down onto the bed, exhausted. Just staring at Carlos tends to be a very stimulating exercise. Carlos lies down next to him, similarly exhausted. Cecil understands. Being that handsome would be energy consuming too. Cecil turns to slide his arm over Carlos’s waist and tuck his head under his chin.

“So, the past few days, huh?” he begins. Carlos hums.

“About six days, to be exact.”

Cecil wiggles closer to Carlos. He only remembers bits and pieces of that time.

“I fell in love every day I saw you.”

This close, Cecil can hear Carlos’s chest moving, taking in air and spitting it back out again, pumping blood through his entire body. He can’t believe he had forgotten.

“I never want to do that again.”

Carlos’s arm wraps around his back and squeezes.

“I want to _stay_ in love with you, you know?”

Cecil can feel Carlos nod. His chin presses against his head.

“It’ll never happen again. They won’t do it. I’ll find a way to make it happen.”

Carlos sounds so determined, Cecil is getting butterflies and feathers in his stomach all over again. Hopefully, it’s not so literal this time.

“We should get another hatchet,” Cecil blurts out.

“Oh?”

Cecil knows without having to actually look that Carlos is smiling. Cecil grins as well and nods enthusiastically against his chest.

“Yep. You holding two hatchets will be a truly frightening image, capable of scaring away any foul creature of the dark void. Also very hot. It’s going to be _so_ hot. We should totally get one more.”

He can definitely hear Carlos laughing now.

“Okay,” he says, mirth lighting up his voice as if the angels themselves came to his room to bless them. “We can go tomorrow. The Secret Police let me know earlier that your intern’s doing the show until tomorrow, so we have time.”

Cecil closes his eyes and just breathes for a moment. He’ll have to visit the station soon and do some damage control, make sure the interns are alright, but that’s all in the future.

For now, they still have time.

 


End file.
